Between the Spaces
by sturmgalan
Summary: In a world where the nations don't know each other, England and Germany somehow find their way together. AU.
1. side: Germany

I promise someday I will post something that has not been on the kink meme first! ...Today is not that day. Reaaaaally hoping England and Germany came off all right in this; I haven't yet quite settled into their voices - or rather, just Germany's, I suppose, since this entire thing is from his POV. Crit and reviews are greatly appreciated.

The original prompt: "I would like to see an AU in which the nations don't know each other's existence, i.e. they assume they are the only personification in the world. And maybe their bosses don't know their existence either.

What I specifically want is two nations meeting each other, each assuming the other is a human, and develop a friendship/love for each other. But later it revealed that their new friend was in fact their enemy/antagonizer/etc. I want to see the shock and the making-up after the revelation."

* * *

It's a bad time for a German to be in England, perhaps, but he had followed after his soldiers and stayed when they left. He wants to see the destruction they have wrought with his own eyes, bear witness the sacrifices that needed to be made for a newer, _better_ world.

And right now, his own land with trenches like shallow cuts across his skin is a little too overwhelming for comfort.

He doesn't expect to find a friend.

It starts in a little pub, when he buys a drink with the meagre amount of money he has. He nurses it because he can't afford more, but half an hour and a quarter into the mug later, a man settles next to him and ends up offering him another.

"Personal troubles?" the man had asked. "You've been at it," a handwave at his mug, "for awhile."

He'd replied, with care to hide his accent, "No, I... have no more money."

His English must have passed muster - or perhaps simply too many other foreign soldiers had come before - for he got little reaction but a snort. "Ah, _those_ kinds of troubles. Never mind, have another on me. Share what little comfort we have in times of war and all."

"Thank you," he'd said, and took his drinking a little faster now that there were the prospects of more.

It ends, somehow, at the top of Big Ben - "Don't tell," the man'd said to him, winked and _smirked_ before jimmying the lock open and motioning him to follow - with a bottle they pass back and forth. He finds himself confessing, "I wanted- I wanted to see what war did to people."

"What, didn't see enough back home?"

"I wanted to see if it was so everywhere."

"War is war," and for a long while, that's the last thing said.

They don't share names. They never think to; it seems as if they've known each other for a long, long time. It is a beautiful thing he never expected to find, and he treasures it, even as he returns. "Come find me again after the war," the man says, as a parting shot. "I'm always here. I'll show you Britain as it's meant to be seen."

...

It begins again back home, on torn lands and amidst corpses, in a trench. They see each other's uniforms first - "Fuck, a Jerry!" "_Scheiße_!" - and then as they both scramble to bring their guns up, the recognition hits, worse than a bomb. (A bomb is just physical, Germany thinks, he could have dealt with that. Feelings are so much harder.)

"You're-!" The enemy? German? Germany wonders what the Briton would have said were the man not cut off by cries from both sides. He doesn't think the situation could get much worse until one of his men yells out, "Mein Vaterland!" and the Briton's expression goes from stony to explosive.

"You're. You're the bloody _nation_." The laugh the man lets out is harsh. "Of course you are. Of course! Well, _I_ am going to give you a taste of the might of the British Empire!"

It's all Germany can do then to hold his own and _not think_. He can't afford to think, so he just fights, and his mind is a litany of _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry_. Pushed into too close quarters for guns, they resort to knives instead. He has the greater build and reach, but the Briton fights dirty.

And, as he learns later, the man really does have the might of the British Empire behind him.

He's finally taken down with a well-placed knee to his gut, and his - not a friend any longer, no - opponent slices his throat with a vicious jerk. "If only this would end the war," he hears, hissed. "But no, such creatures as us don't die so easily after all."

Ah. _God_. Through the pain, something like joy shoots through his heart, _he is not the only one_.

The shock of blood loss, when it comes, is a relief.

It... doesn't end, but continues like this: he returns to the pub where they'd first met, for if there is one thing he does, it is to see things through to the bitter end. Everything about him still hurts, and his neck remains swathed in bandages for the foreseeable future. He thinks he's coming down with a cold.

But the Briton really is there, if looking worse for the wear himself.

"I'm sorry," he says, before he can be silenced. He goes for honesty; he has nothing much to lose at this point. "I think meeting you was... the only good thing that came of the war. I, I would appreciate it if you showed me Britain as it was meant to be seen."

He receives silence, and then a snort that dissolves into low chuckles. "I think you might be the most brazen sod I've ever met. Well, I suppose I can afford to be magnanimous. After all, you're really the same as I am, aren't you?"

A nation? Undying? Lonely? "Yes," to all three. With relief, he offers his hand, and introduces himself for the first time. "My name is Ludwig Beilschmidt. It's nice to meet you."

The hand that clasps his is rough and calloused but warm. "Arthur Kirkland. Buy me a drink, and I might be pleased to meet you after all."


	2. side: England

Aaaaand England's side of the thing! And the end of this, since unless I get something really gnawing on my brain in the 'verse I am unlikely to do anything else with it, sorry. orz I am just... crap at not doing open-ended endings? hau hau.

**ETA:** An awesome anon over at the kink meme is continuing it! Check out the fic here: hetalia-kink. livejournal. com/ 17942. html?thread=65217046#t65217046 (just remove the spaces /o/)

* * *

It's not because he's desperately lonely or anything. Really.

It's been a long time since Arthur Kirkland let himself be interested in someone. He tends to be drawn to great people, people who in the courses of their lives will leave their mark upon him and history. He wonders whether that is part of the nature of what he is, for he's not sure whether he'd let himself be changed at all, otherwise.

They all die, though, those men and women great and sometimes terrible and always, in their own ways, beautiful. They all die and he is left behind the better and worse for it.

Right now, however, there is a man at the bar of his usual pub, whose very presence tugs at him. He marvels at the coincidences that had to have come together for them to meet. That he happens to be on leave, that this stranger - and the man obviously is one, for everyone else is a regular - has chosen his pub of all the pubs on this very day to go to. His fairies urge him on, to go talk to the man. They only see the short-term happiness; they are unable to comprehend future heartbreak, as geared to living in the moment as they are. He gives in though - he will not have peace of mind from them until he does, and in any case, if the man is as great as his gut tells him...

"Personal troubles?" he asks as he settles next to the man. "You've been at it for awhile."

Well, all right, that probably wasn't as smooth as he'd have liked. It _had_ been awhile.

At least the man hasn't dismissed him yet, though the silence is beginning to drag. Just as he's about to return to his own drink, the man replies, a little awkwardly. "No, I... have no more money."

And that is a problem he can fix.

A few hours later, when night has truly set in, Arthur could be buggered if he knew how they ended up at the top of the Big Ben. (All right, so he knows he jimmied the lock and then waved the other man after him. There are some perks to being the British Empire, and one of them's getting away with such things. But how had they even gotten to talking about Big Ben in the first place? Oh, it didn't really matter.) Alcohol has long stopped tasting like anything but water; he is drunk as a skunk and rather giddy with it, all told. He thinks he's been rambling on about his fairy friends too, if the other man's expression is anything to go by. Honestly, he's just glad he hasn't hit the stage of miserable drunk yet.

That's no fun for anyone.

Ah... what has he been going on about? Oh yes. Violet and Rose and all the other brownies. "They kept urging me to go up to you, y'see? Sweet girls, but no real sense about these things. They're quite decent around the house though, not like those blasted redcaps. I keep telling them, dye their hats with the blood of the Jerries all they like," there is an odd look from his companion at that, "jus' don't fuckin' drag it onto my carpets. Least they only come 'round in troubled times. Ah now, the unicorns, _they're_ darlings."

His fellow drinker makes more strange faces. "...I think you have had enough."

"Enough! Hah, what bollocks. Enough. I've had enough of this war, s'what I've had enough of."

To his companion's credit, the man neither joins him in commiserating nor shies away from the topic. "I wanted- I wanted to see what war did to people."

_Only Americans_, he thinks, and the fondness in his mental voice is what makes him realise he's a bit more pissed than he'd thought. "What, didn't see enough at home?" But he supposes there's nothing quite like seeing what war does to a person's own land. He would know. The people across the pond have been fairly lucky in that respect.

He's quickly turning morose, and that as much as anything is what decides for him to bring the evening to a close. He will see the man again anyway; this is how these things always go.

...

He does see the man again, but in all the ways he'd dreamt up when he'd allowed himself to indulge in idle fantasies, this scenario hadn't even crossed his mind.

Anger is easier than hurt, and there is so much hurt. He is a Nation, but in many ways he is human too. There is grim satisfaction when he slits the man's throat, of a job well done and of retribution, and only duty keeps him from returning home right then to lick his wounds.

Still. "You," he hisses to the fairies later that evening. Their faces are beautiful until they smile, and all the childish cruelty shows.

"Wasn't that fun, Arthur! A little doll to play with, forever and ever."

"Why didn't you _warn_ me?"

"Why would we do that?"

Oh, they are ugly, but they are also the only friends that will never leave him. They need each other too much, tied together in land and blood and belief as they are.

He does not expect to see that bastard Jerry again, and most certainly not in the very pub they met. In hindsight, he thinks he should have known better; it has been this way for every great man and woman that has crossed his path in the past (and oh, he hates to admit it, but Germany is great and terrible both).

Asking to see Britain, the nerve!

Still, he is a gentleman as well as a soldier, and he likes to think he never goes back on his word.

And, weeks later, he discovers Germany, war-torn as he is, is beautiful.

"If there's you, and me," Arthur muses one day, newly settled in each other and on the sea together, and bollocks to the government. "There must be more of us out there. Shall we go find them?" His empire is falling down around him, and he would rather not think about it.

"Do you mean to... search together?"

There are many times he forgets how young Ludwig is, but the man in his uncertainty is not one of them. "Yes. Yes, of course, you daft fool."

"...I will submit my resignation."

"What, you didn't go and tell your new government about yourself, did you? I only bother in times of war so they don't get into an absolute tizzy over me."

"No, it's just a regular job. I told you I was on vacation."

"I thought that was a," he flapped his hand vaguely, if meaningfully, "a German thing."

"No."

"You do that then. Now where shall we start off, Portugal? Spain? We can leave those bloody frogs for last..."


End file.
